If you have managed your company website, chances are you have come across the phrase keywords or search terms. It’s a phrase that most people have a vague understanding of but aren’t too sure about.
In this article we will discuss this topic in detail and give you some tips to get the most out of your website by improving your SEO.
Table of content:
To learn about key words you first need to know about SEO
SEO or also known as Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of having your website rank on search engines such as google.
While Google ads are a great short term solution for having people find your website, SEO is a long term solution. While it may take upwards of 6 months to see noticeable results, the results are long lasting.
How Keywords affect Search Engine Optimization
SEO works by google understanding what information people want when using specific keywords in their google search. Then google is able to evaluate how relevant you are for that keyword depending on how users behave on your website.
For example, if someone were to make a search for how keywords affect SEO and came to this article. Google can see that users read the article and got the information they wanted and left satisfied. Google then knows this page was the correct destination for that keyword.
Likewise, if you came to this page and left within seconds, Google can see that this wasn’t the information you were looking for. Google then knows not to show this page for that keyword again in the future.
Search terms in content writing
At BeQuick Media we prefer to use the phrase search term with our clients as it helps to reinforce the idea of using the words users use in google searches when writing content. It is best practice to get in the mind of your consumer when structuring any content.
Website users are not thinking of specific key words when making a search. Searches are generally “Conversational Searches” and are in the form of a full sentence.
For example if your website is slow to load and you are looking for a solution online. Most users would search for “Why is my website slow to load” rather than using just key words such as “Website hosting speed issue”. For this reason it is important to keep headings in your content conversational.
Choosing your keywords
When choosing the keywords you want your website to rank for, it is important to first do some keyword research.
Using tools such as Semrush, you can get great insight into keywords and how many people are searching for them and how many competitors are also trying to rank for that search term.
For example if you are a financial advisor you may want to rank for the keyword “pension advice”, you can see from the image below that this would be a challenge.
What is search volume
From the above example you can see that the search term we used has a Search Volume of 170. This means that there are 170 people searching for this keyword each month in Ireland.
By reviewing the volume of your keyword and the other keywords you can then make a decision to use the chosen keyword or a related one with a higher search volume. For example adding Ireland to the end will often have a large difference in volume.
What Keyword difficulty
Keyword difficulty relates to the amount of competition there is for the keyword you are looking to rank for and is measured as a percentage (100% being the most difficult).
In the example used there Keyword difficulty is 44%. This shows that there are competitors also looking to rank for this term, but if you implement the correct strategy, you should be able to rank on the first page within a year.
When starting out, it can be a good idea to try and rank for keywords with very low difficulty. For example we can see here that “pension advice ireland” had a Keyword difficulty of 40%. This isn’t a huge difference, but doing this research may make a massive difference.
Keyword stuffing
While it is important to try and fit keywords into content on your website, it is also important to not go overboard with keyword stuffing. When scanning your website content, Google is able to pick up on if you are trying to cheat the system by unseasarly repeating the same keyword over and over again.
The act of trying to cheat the google algorithm is called Black Hat SEO and can result in your website losing web rankings.
Want to learn more about SEO and keywords?
If you are looking to improve your website rankings, have a look at some of our other SEO related articles like this one on how web design can affect SEO. Or feel free to fill out our call back form below to request a free SEO consultation with one of our SEO experts.